Tools,
resources and autonomy all important factors in lifting worker
effectiveness

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett
answering questions from business students at the University
of Nebraska

Companies seeking to improve their
performance should focus more attention on their employees, giving
them the tools, resources and autonomy they need to do their jobs
well, suggests a new study by the Economist
Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Microsoft. sponsored by Microsoft.

The research defines enablement as
giving employees what they need to do their jobs well:
organisational structures, appropriate technologies and other
resources that let employees make decisions that contribute to the
firm’s profitable growth. Enablement provides the organisational and
information conditions that allow staff to make optimal decisions.
These include the following autonomy sufficient to make the best
decisions for the company; tools to do the best possible job; access
to financial resources that may be needed to buy these tools and
allow for enough people to handle the workload; a collaborative
working environment that motivates people and reduces the cost of
working together; performance incentives, both financial and
non-financial; and clarity of policies and procedures.

“The study clearly shows a
positive correlation between employees’ degree of enablement and its
self-reported financial performance,” says
Nigel Holloway, Director of Research at the Economist Intelligence
Unit in North America. “That positive correlation
exists across dozens of variables including profitability, revenue
growth, tangible assets and strategic success.”

A statistical analysis shows this
positive association. Firms that responded to the survey fell into
one of four distinct groups, each exhibiting distinctive behaviour
with respect to enablement. The group with the highest level of
enablement also contained the highest proportion of companies that
were more profitable than their competitors.

Overall, the research found that many
employees already feel adequately enabled. Sixty-three percent of
survey respondents indicated they have a high degree of autonomy,
while more than one-quarter (25.2%) say they collaborate frequently
with others.

Yet the findings also suggest that
employees could be much more enabled than they are. On the
technology front, only about one-half of companies surveyed (53%)
indicated they have the IT tools they need, while roughly the same
proportion said they have access to the information they need.
One-third said they have the teamwork structures necessary for
enablement, while only 17% feel that their organisations have enough
employees with the necessary skills and training to work
independently. Just 10% feel there is enough money in the budget to
enable individuals and teams to accomplish their tasks.

The research also suggests that if
firms want employees to be more effective, they should allow them to
take prudent risks within parameters that limit potential losses.
Encouragingly, nearly two-thirds of survey respondents (64%) say
that their organisations tolerate reasonable risk-taking. Yet a full
20% say their firms discourage it and only 13% say their companies
actively support it.